Final Evaluation

Rory McNeice

The masthead is in a traditional position of being at the top left as to have moved it would have made it difficult to view when it was on a shelf and would render the magazine unidentifiable it also gives a brief glimpse as to what the magazine’s genre is.

The main image has been framed so that you can see the artist and the majority of the guitar also her style suggests she is an indie artist I asked the model to dress indie to help the magazine be quickly identified as an indie magazine

The main article isn’t in its traditional position on the left as I didn’t feel it fitted there as on the right it is still a main feature of the front page but it fits around the main image nicely.

The pull quote is supposed to be in contrast to the look of the rest of the front page to try and entice the readers attention buy being a little controversial to what would normally be on an Indie magazine.

I put the left third in 2 positions as I thought it would have over crowded the left side as the left side has the majority of the main image on it.

I kept the background the same blue as it gives the magazine a sense of house style and I used a Photoshop brush to get the clouds as I felt the white linked in with the main image

With the page heading I used the same colour and font as on the first page to maintain a sense of house style.

I tried to make sure the contents was about half and half with images and text as I felt that contents pages with a majority of either looked over crowded and were often difficult to understand.

I used this layout as I felt it gave it a simplistic look and kept it from looking overcrowded.

I used a collage of pictures instead of using one larger lead picture and I placed the pictures in this fashion giving them a kind of collage effect which I felt looked nice and kept to the indie genre of the magazine.

I kept the same font in the article heading as on the front and contents pages to keep the sense of house style although the standfirst isn’t in its traditional position as I felt it fitted better here it is still recognisable.

I used the same background as on the content to maintain the house style of the magazine and make sure the DPS looked as though it belonged to the magazine.

I used two columns to keep the text looking tidy and keep with the house style of the magazine as in the contents the pictures and the text are kept in two separate columns.

I kept the by line on the top as it kept it next to the title of the article as it kept to the normal conventions of a magazine so it was easy to locate.

The pull quote to encourage readers into reading the whole article as it is controversial to what would normally be in an indie magazine.

I did a lot of work building up to actually constructing my magazine and constructing a knowledge of what it is that makes a magazine appeal to particular social groups such as:

http://www.slideshare.net/RoryMcNeice/magazine-analysis-5703829

Analyzing Magazines

Surveyshttp://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FVD9YYC

Moodboards

http://issuu.com/rorymcneice/docs/music_magazine_mood_board?mode=

embed&viewMode=presentation&layout=http://

skin.issuu.com/v/light/layout.xml&showFlipBtn=true

In the survey I did before I started construction of my magazine I asked the question ‘What types of music do you enjoy?’ in an attempt to discover what type of music my audience would most enjoy a magazine about and the results showed that 90% of my audience enjoyed Indie music which is why I decided to do an Indie magazine.

After I had decided I wanted to do an Indie magazine I decided to research what an Indie magazine would look like and come Indie/Hipster photography

I used aspects of Indie type photography in my photo shoot with things such as the way my model is dressed as she is dressed in fairly neutral colours which are very indie and her hair has a free and wild look about it.

Also the fact that the guitar is an acoustic guitar adds to the Indie effect as it is a trademark off Indie music and it also helps give the image a natural look as the acoustic guitar is a very natural sounding instrument.

I made sure my model was youngish looking as I my survey I found that the majority of my audience was aged 13-29 and so the fact that the model was youngish would appeal to them instead of having a model that was older or younger which may have made the magazine look less appealing to them also the majority of my audience was female so having a female model helped to make the magazine more appealing to them.

I tried to make the images look as natural as possible to keep in with the Indie genre of the magazine and I did this by selecting a fairly natural and wild looking background for most of the images and I made sure most of the background contained fairly neutral colours.

I tried to make the pull quote controversial to the normal conventions of an Indie magazine by referring to a musical preference that wouldn’t normally be associated with an Indie artist.

I didn’t want my copy and my body copy to stick to the normal conventions of an Indie magazine as I found them to be quite uninteresting more often than not and I felt I was safe to do so because I had kept most of the rest of the magazine fitting with the Indie genre

I wanted to make my article seem fairly simple and easy to read as I didn't want my readers to switch off whilst reading it and I tried to keep the questions and responses as natural as I could as I felt that if it seemed unnatural it would discourage the reader to discontinue reading it.

The majority of my audience when asked in a

survey stated that they would expect to see my

magazine sold in stores rather than online.

To be able to sell my magazine in stores I would

stand a better chance if I used a publisher such as

Bauer media or IPC media but if I had to choose

which one to use I would choose Bauer media as it

sells a lot more modern magazines and IPC sells the

other biggest selling indie magazine which is NME.

My initial survey gave me a target audience of female students aged 13-19 that enjoyed indie music and were passionate about it and also had access to a variety of different media

On my evaluative survey I also got a majority of females aged 13-19 who felt the magazine looked indie which means I managed to get my magazine to appeal to my target audience and a majority of those surveyed said they would buy my magazine

I constructed a survey on survey monkey and got feedback that was mainly what I had aimed to achieve

I also posted my magazine to blog spot and got

comments on it.

I have learnt how to use various aspects of Photoshop such as cropping images, changing the curves, using the liquefy tool on a picture, free transforming an image, Photoshop brushes, etc. And before I started the course I had no clue how to use Photoshop. Through learning how to use tools in Photoshop in lessons I then went on to learning how to use new tools from YouTube tutorials.

I have also learnt how to use new sites such as Survey Monkey, Issuu and Slideshare which I had no idea existed before I started the course.

And from starting this course I have learnt how to use blogs such as Blogspot and Tumblr.

In my initial project of making my college magazine I had no idea of how to use Photoshop but now I have a better idea of how to use it and I’m able to work more independently. One of the things I feel I have improved on is maintaining a sense of house style throughout the magazine.

Also I have discovered how to use many new tools on Photoshop and how to direct a magazine to a target audience as my college magazine is just a load of word put on a picture and there isn’t much of a layout to it and the contents isn’t very easy to navigate and doesn’t really look like it belongs to the same magazine.